When I was a kid, before GPS’s, my Norco Nomad just knew the fastest bike route to any home within a two mile radius that had a pool. I would throw my towel around my shoulders hoping it looked more like a fashion-statement and less like a kid desperate to go swimming. Already wearing my bathing suit under my shorts my blue ten-speed and I would be off. I didn’t even have to know the home owners. I would just hang around their fence, peeking through holes or slats in the wood and hope there would be enough people that one more swimmer would potentially go unnoticed.

I don’t think I told my parents where I was going because I was never sure where I would end up. I would hear laughter, diving board bounces and my handle bar sonar would lead the way.

Skip ahead 30 years and technology has helped make it easier for the chlorine sniffers to find us on a hot day.

I don’t want anyone to think for a second I’m complaining about having a pool. It has always been a dream of mine and all of the “TAKE HEED!” warnings we heard before having one put in could never outweigh the fun and enjoyment we’ve already gotten out of it.

So rather than reading this as venting or me feeling agitated or annoyed at basic pool etiquette, let’s just call the rest of this post “Pool Observations.”

1. I am lifeguard. Hear me whistle.

At no point in my life did I take any kind of oath or life saving course other than maybe the babysitting course and even then I put a few diapers on backwards and tried to get the plastic dolls to eat crackers. I can’t imagine leaving my children in someone’s care who really isn’t equipped to save the snake (apparently snakes can swim) that I didn’t know could swim from drowning in my pool. Still, they come, towels in hand. I watch from my perch, zinc on my nose and I pray to Pitbull that nothing happens to anyone. Not today. Not on my pool noodle.

2. If you have a pool, hosting just comes hand in hand. Believe me when I say, you will achieve nothing else in a day other than sitting very still with the exception of the occasional dunk. This is not a complaint. It’s just fact. So the trip to the Future Shop to pick up the e-reader case that has been on hold since the day before we opened the pool will hopefully still be at the front desk on the first day of school in September.

That excursion to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials? That is never going to happen while the weather is clear and sunny. Your family will be drinking gas station milk until the first big rain storm.

That friend you promised to drop in on with a coffee? Oh, she’s in your backyard—never mind.

3. People will drop in for another reason–any reason other than to swim. It could be to borrow a cup of milk (try the gas station) or to tell you there’s a strange formation in the asphalt on your driveway that looks like Jesus or that they called and called (for a reason they’ll never tell you because they haven’t thought that one through yet) so they thought they better hurry and come right over. Skip ahead ten minutes, they all end up on a floatie.

I especially liked it when someone showed up to tell me the slats in the blinds on one of the garage windows looked bent from one angle but it turned out to just be the way the sun was shining on it and then a child tugging the terrible-actor parent’s sugar bags said, “Mom, I thought you were going to ask if we could swim?”

Towels. Never mind.

There’s something you should know. Regardless of who shows up or what their reason, we actually like it. Our kids have more fun when someone new comes along and joins them in the pool. We love hosting people and it’s a great way for everyone to enjoy the summer.

But don’t expect too much.

When someone tells me I should do something with my garden, pick some of the weeds, bring my laundry in from three weeks ago, I wish they knew the near impossibility of the tasks they are suggesting. When the pool is empty, my other house related duties will get done. Until then, my bum remains glued to this lounger, swamp ass in a perfumy puddle of my own sweat and sunscreen. Exactly the way Pitbull intended.

Meals. Our meals in the summer are in a word, abysmal. It’s not that we don’t know how to cook or enjoy cooking. We know how. We love it. There is no opportunity to prepare a decent meal when people are over swimming until 5:30pm. Those people planned ahead and put a batch of meatballs in the crock-pot before following the sound of water guns to our house. Those people made pizza dough at noon and have it ready to pop in the oven when they walk in their door at the end of the day. Those people haven’t been sitting outside since eating their oatmeal breakfast and considered only having bathroom breaks in the wee hours of the morning and late at night or, when the other swimmers have been facing the deep end for a minimum of thirty seconds.

We will be eating cans of cat food (we don’t even have a cat) until Labour Day.

Failing that, I’ll ride my Norco to the gas station to pick up a few essentials.

And it works for us.